I use a pie crust recipe that includes an egg and a tablespoon of vinegar in addition to the flour, water, and fat. It turns our very tender and flaky and is much easier to roll out than recipes without them.

Kyle, I haven't researched this and am answering off the top of my head, and I suspect you could find the answers more completely by checking out a food/cooking resource such as the books by Shirley Corriher or Harold McGee. However, it's my understanding with regard to the vinegar that the acidity in the vinegar helps to break up the gluten strands developed in the flour, thus thwarting the toughness that sometimes results from overworking the dough. Make sense?

I'm not sure at all what the egg does besides add moisture and richness and perhaps helps the browning process. Perhaps someone else can address that ingredient.

1. Mix flour and salt. Cut shortening into flour until well mixed and about pea sized pieces.

2. In a separate bowl mix the remaining ingredients. Add them to flour and stir until they come together. Finish by using your hands until the dough no longer sticks to your hands. This will only take about one or two minutes.

3. Chill at least 15 minutes before rolling out. The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Can also be frozen.

Yes, swan, shortening is the fatty component of a pastry crust, could be vegetable shortening, a solidified white block that comes in rectangular boxes much akin to those in which one buys North American butter, or lard, or come to think of it, Crisco comes in cans!

Vinegar was always used by my mother and grandmother when making pie pastry, now I understand why!_________________Vivant Linguae Mortuae!!

yuk, that does not sound very appetising, we obviously don't know something like that in NL, allthough now that I think about it, it does exist especially for deep frying, those blocks of fat.
Perhaps for some people butter gives the same goosebumps- but for me: butter, or perhaps oil, nothing else funny-fatty in my pies!! Crisco...funny name. one supermarkt in NL close to my home sells it, haven't been looking for it here in HK yet. Could one just blindly replace it with equal amounts of butter?!
Why would one use shortening, what does it do different or better?

The flaky texture that we want in a pie crust depends on the inclusion of fat. The best pie crusts will use lard, but most of us don't have it in our kitchen. Different fats will give slightly different results so use the one you like.

I've never tried to use margerine so I don't know how it would work. Soft margerine has too much water so I'm sure that it would not work but the sticks might.

Champ...how lovely of you to notice my presence (also absence...). Thank you. I do suppose I was remiss upon our return from Ireland (ask Donna...haven't seen her, as I promised I would...since I got back...). I won't go into great detail here as it's the wrong forum, but let me just say that we LOVED Ireland, the Irish, the countryside, the food, the music. All of it. Could not have asked for a better holiday. Some day when I have much energy, I'll post a travel report in a more appropriate spot.

Back to pie crusts...no, no, no. No margarine. In fact, no margarine for anything, if I had my way.

Lots of traditionalists (Marion Cunningham among them) believe the best pie crust is made with vegetable shortening, i.e. Crisco. That's the way I learned to make pie crust myself. Others believe in all-butter formulas, and I think those are very close to traditional French pate brisee. Really delicious crusts, flakey and tastey, use a combination of mostly butter combined with a small amount of vegetable shortening. Julia Child (among many others) liked that version.

I've looked further at the recipes using vinegar and an egg and something strikes me: all the vinegar recipes do include an egg--that is, not just vinegar alone. I wonder if there is some chemical reaction between those two ingredients that makes a difference. However, I haven't found any explanations in that regard. Any food scientists out there who want to venture a guess?

Just wanted to say I found confirmation of the role of vinegar in Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking.

On Controlling Gluten Strength (pages 523-525 in my edition), McGee writes, "There are a number of ingredients and techniques by which the baker controls the gluten strength and consistency of doughs and batters." And he ends the list with, "Acidity in the dough (...), which weakens the gluten network by increasing the number of positively charged amino acids along the protein chains, and increasing the repulsive forces between chains."

any question...'n the answer is out there in C&Zland...I love it to bits!_________________"I've never accepted the external appearance of things as the whole truth. The world is much more elaborate than the nerves of our eye can tell us." - James Gleeson

Cooks Illustrated (my "bible") published a recipe a while back that uses vodka instead of water as the liquid. Apparently the vodka adds moisture but doesn't cause the crust to toughen. I've made it with success. Only problem is that they use Crisco which makes my arteries seize up with the thought. Anyone else tried to vodka (no need to use Grey Goose!).